When I was a kid, growing-up in Highland Park, Illinois, my rabbi’s name was Shalom Singer. He was a wonderful, old-fashioned reform rabbi with white hair and he wore a white robe with sleeves that billowed when he raised his arms to bless us. At such times, he looked exactly like an angel of the Lord. He preached to us in a booming voice but we were never frightened because we knew he loved us kids. He could tell jokes that actually made kids laugh.
Unlike your rabbi, I’m afraid.
But it was his High Holy Day sermons that moved me most, once I was old enough to follow them. One sticks in my mind: He was talking about angels in Judaism – which, as we will see, can be very different from, say, angels in Christianity or angels in Hollywood. Anyway, what I remember is that, at some point during Rabbi Singer’s sermon, my Mom turned to my Dad and said: “Alison is our angel.”
Now, I know what you’re all thinking [pause]: I was their angel then; but I’m yours now! Right?
No, not so much. I’m no angel, I promise you. But angels are on my mind and should be on yours, too. Because our tradition teaches that, on this day, Jews should try to be as much like angels as possible. We want to look at ourselves from an angel’s point of view, hovering between our embodied lives and that of a pure soul.
Our sages say that much of what we do on Yom Kippur is symbolic of being like angels. We dress in white, as angels often do. The tallises we wear on this night – this being the only night of the year when we do so – might symbolize an angel’s wings. Part of the reason we don’t eat on Yom Kippur is because angels don’t; nor do we engage in . . . other pleasures of the flesh, because we have it on good authority that angels don’t do that either.
It may be hard not to chuckle, imagining our imperfect selves impersonating angels – especially on Yom Kippur, when all of our sins and shortcomings are in the forefront of our minds. But there is a deep spiritual basis for this tradition and once we understand it, it’s much easier to embrace.
First, let’s set the record straight: what is an angel? Well, let’s begin by settling what it’s not, at least in Jewish tradition. You know those fat little babies with wings and halos that you see in ecclesiastical art? In English they’re known as cherubs, and none of them are Jewish, so far as I know. The word “cherub” comes from the Hebrew word keruvim, who were nothing like the chubby little cherubs. They were awesome, powerful creatures. Their image was said to be carved in gold on the ark of the covenant that rested in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple. But by far the most common word for angel used in the Torah is malach, which simply means “messenger.”
Shalom Aleichem, sung Friday nights, is about welcoming malachey hashareyt, malachei elyon, hamelachim El Elyon, messengers of the Most High, messengers of Shalom, Peace, to hang out with us on Shabbat.
Another definition of a malach might be “errand runner.” Most of the time, we read of them delivering a message to someone or taking care of some chore and then, I kind of feel sorry for them because, poof! they’re gone!
Remember the angel we read about on Rosh Hashanah who arrived just in time to save Isaac from his father’s knife? After that, poof! Gone. Abraham, you’ll recall, was visited by three different angels: One told him his wife Sarah would have a baby, the second warned him that God would soon destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the third saved his nephew Lot from the destruction. And then: Poof, poof, poof!
Now, why is this? Why aren’t we allowed to get to know them a bit, as we do, say, the prophets?
One interpretation can be derived from the Zohar, the central book of Jewish mysticism, (I,101a) which says, “whenever the celestial spirits descend to earth, they clothe themselves in physical things and appear to people in human shape.” In other words, angels take human form when they need to, in order to interact with us and perform a certain task. Once that task is done, the “human shape” that accomplished it is done, too.
And so you see, this is another way that way we are like angels on this day: We assume angel-like existence to accomplish the task of teshuvah; and when this task is completed, tomorrow after Sundown – poof! – we become our human selves again.
The reason for focusing on all of this is, I think most of us on Yom Kippur don’t think much about becoming an angel, or like an angel. This year, let’s give it a try. Seriously. For instance, in a few minutes, we are going to say the Shema, and Anna our Rabbinic Intern will have some words for us to make this Shema as meaningful as possible – as it should always be, but especially on this day.
Because, normally, when we recite the Shema, we chant the first line out loud Shema Yisrael - God is One, and whisper the second line. Why? Because in the prophets we find a vision of the angels surrounding the throne of God and repeating the words “Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam va’ed -Blessed is your Name, the glory of your Sovereignty for eternity.” In other words, it is the angel’s job to sing those words and we join in only meekly and discreetly, with humility.
But not on Yom Kippur.
As we say shema tonight, let us do so as angels would do, with pure hearts and deep gratitude, and bear witness to the miraculous privilege of living in a world filled with Divinity. For the world is a total blending of Divinity and materiality, as we are each completely soul and body.
A few minutes ago, I said that our aim will be to try to look at ourselves from an angel’s point of view, hovering between our embodied lives and that of a pure soul. We are going to do so, and every one of us is going to find a vast distance between ourselves and the pure soul of an angel. It is rarely much fun to look at ourselves with unvarnished honesty and then compare what we are to what we strive to be. Perhaps, when all is said and done, the angels will be laughing at us, so great is the distance between them and us.
Our sages have legends and answers for those laughing angels, and they are good ones. Zingers, you might say; or burns. One of my favorite answers was The Hassidic Rebbe Moshe of Kobryn, who was born in Belarus in 1784. When he heard the angels laughing, he looked to the Heavens and cried: “It is no great trick to be an angel, up there in the sky. You don’t have to eat and drink, beget children, and earn money. Just you come down to earth and worry about getting food, raising children and earning money. We shall see if you’re able to keep on being an angel. If you succeed, you may boast – but not now. Not now!”
The Talmud tells a similar story about Moses himself. (Shabbos 88b) When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the angels groaned. “What is this mortal doing amongst us?” Moses replied, “I’ve come to take the Torah to the Jewish people.” This was too much for the angels who pleaded with God not to give such a gift to mortals who were unfit to care for it. "Leave the Torah with us and we will honor and cherish it.”
Moses, properly humble, held his tongue. But then God turned to Moses and commanded him to answer them :
"My dear angels,” Moses explained, “just take a look at what the Torah commands – 'I am the Lord your G‑d who has taken you out of the land of Egypt,' 'Honor your parents.' Do you have a father and mother? Have you been enslaved in Egypt? Have you a selfish and evil inclination?”
The Torah is intended for souls vested in physical bodies confronted with the realities of our material world.
That’s us. And that’s why I think, when my mom told my dad that I was their angel, she was right. Not because there’s anything special or superior about me. But because our children - society’s children - are our malachim, our messengers.
The way we raise them, and, perhaps more important give them the protection and space to raise themselves, is the best hope of transmitting what is best in us to the next generation and achieving, not quite immortality, but a meaningful role in l’dor v’dor – the chain that links generation to generation past, present, and future.
Whether or not we have actually given birth to or raised children isn’t really the point because they are all ours. In our world – or at least in our Jewish world – we build our future together, as one people, celebrating the unity of creation and our unity with the Divine. Our children depend upon all of us – not just parents – and we upon them.
It is for all of us that we come to the synagogue on Yom Kippur and strive to be better. We may never be angels; but we will strive to be as humane as humans are capable of being. Fully embodied souls, going into our broken yet beautiful world, to also be messengers of morality and peace.
And this is our way of saying, “Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam va’ed -Blessed is your Name, the glory of your Sovereignty for eternity.”
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